N13259:268
Sermons, on the following subjects
Sermons, on the following subjects; The manner in which salvation is to be sought. The unreasonableness of indetermination in religion. Unbelievers contemn the glory of Christ. The folly of looking back in fleeing out of Sodom. The warnings of Scripture in the best manner adapted to the awakening and conversion of sinners. Hypocrites deficient in the duty of prayer. The future punishment of the wicked unavoidable and intolerable. The eternity of hell-torments. The peace which Christ gives his true followers. The perpetuity & change of the Sabbath. / By the late Reverend Mr. Jonathan Edwards, president of the College of New-Jersey.
Hartford: printed by Hudson and Goodwin, 1780
Sermon 6: The Warnings of Scripture are in the best manner adapted to the awakening and conversio…
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
5. GOD'S warning of us of our danger of damnation hath a greater tendency to have influence upon ⟨p. 102⟩us, because he is our judge. Damnation is a punishment to which he condemns and which he inflicts. What he warns us of is his own wrath and vengeance. In his word we have his threatenings against sin denounced by himself. He tells us that if we go on in sin, he will destroy us, and cast us out of his sight, and pour out his wrath upon us, and hold us eternally under torment and misery. He tells us so himself, and this hath a much greater tendency to influence us, than to be told so by another, who is not to be our judge, who hath not in his hands the power of making us miserable.
WHEN a king immediately threatens his own displeasure, it has a greater tendency to terrify men, than when another man threatens it, or warns them of the danger of it.
6. GOD is infinitely wise and knows better how to speak to us so as to persuade us, than one rising from the dead. He perfectly knows our nature and state, and knows how to adapt his instructions and warnings to our frame and circumstances in the world; and without doubt that method which GOD hath chosen and taken in his word, is agreeable to his infinite, wisdom and most adapted to our nature.